IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 12/04/2011

ASUS GeForce GTX580 DirectCU II: The Ultimate Choice
ASUS is a company reputed for going all the way through with its ideas; once they’ve decided to create a special product (or product series, for that matter) and present it to the market, they achieve what they had in mind. This is the case with their own rendition of GeForce GTX580 DirectCU II, which has been redesigned in every way, all with the goal of separating the card from competitors in mind, with both low temperatures and overclock capabilities. Even the world-famous overclocker Shamino managed to set a record on this card; you can read more about this in a separate box. This card is aimed at users who don’t restrain from paying good money for quality and now exactly what quality means. ASUS has done their part of the job flawlessly and we really can’t say that we have anything to reproach to this card.

Read More ...

---

Lenovo ThinkPad X301 will have successor
Recently, there were many rumors that Lenovo is ending their X laptop series, and that X301 will remain last one. Fortunately, this is not true if our insider is to be believed. New model is in development, and it will be known either X1 or X320. While 320 is somehow logical choice, we must admit that X1 sounds more appealing. New model will bring some new futures to the table. Instead of using CULV processor like its predecessors, latest model will use standard notebook CPU – Core i5, second generation. This decision won’t have big negative impact on battery life as it should be around 5h with standard battery. On the other hand, it will definitely bring very big speed improvements, and will make that freshly added HDMI output very usable output option.

Read More ...

---

Toshiba prepares Camileo P100 and B10 full HD camcorders
Toshiba has revealed its latest additions to the Camileo line of camcorders - pocket-friendly models known as P100 (on the left) and B10 (on the right) which can record Full HD (1920x1080 at 30 frames per second) videos and take up to 16 megapixel still shots. The P100 packs an 8 megapixel CMOS sensor, a 3-inch touchscreen, an SD slot supporting up to 64GB cards, a mini HDMI output, a mini USB 2.0 port, and features 8x optical zoom, face tracking and motion detection functions, plus an upload button for fast uploads to YouTube, Facebook, Picasa and Twitvid. All this comes in a 155-gram package measuring 32 x 68 x 111 mm.

Read More ...

---

Acer Iconia Tab A500 released in the US
Coordinating with their European colleagues, the team at Acer America has today introduced the Acer Iconia Tab A500, a 10.1-inch tablet powered by Nvidia's quite popular Tegra 2 chip (with two 1GHz Cortex-A9 cores) which runs Google's Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) OS. The A500 features an aluminum casing just 0.52-inches thick, a 1280x800 touchscreen, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, a rear-facing 5 megapixel camera, a front 2MP camera, Dolby Mobile-enhanced speakers, a HDMI output, two USB ports, and a 3260 mAh battery.

Read More ...

---

Microsoft bringing big batch of updates next week
Microsoft has prepared no less than 17 updates for this month's Patch Tuesday (April 12), the goal being to resolve 64 vulnerabilities, including the critical SMB Browser bug acknowledged last month.

Read More ...

---

Mozilla to release Firefox 5 before end of June
Facing ever-increasing competition from Google's Chrome and even Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla has announced that it will be moving to a more aggressive timetable for its Firefox browser, with Firefox 5 expected before June 21st. Firefox 4 was released just last month, after over a year of development and delays. Even more shockingly, Mozilla expects to release Firefox 6 just 60 days later, at the end of August. Following in Chrome's footsteps, Mozilla is moving to a faster development cycle. Despite being released in 2008, Chrome is already in version 11 (beta for users) and version 12 (beta for developers).

Read More ...

---

ASUS' 12x external Blu-ray writer debuts
Revealed just before CeBIT 2011, ASUS' BW-12D1S-U Blu-ray writer has now received a proper introduction and should become available very soon. This drive promises write speeds of up to 12x for Blu-ray discs and, thanks to its Optical Tuning Strategy (OTS) technology, which enables smooth playback.

Read More ...

---

OCZ now shipping Vertex 3 SSDs
Six weeks have passed since their announcement and now OCZ's Vertex 3 consumer-grade solid state drives have started shipping, promising to deliver double the performance of the Vertex 2 models by using SandForce's new SF-2200 controller and a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface. Drives have a 2.5-inch form factor, feature multi-level cell NAND Flash memory, TRIM support, a MTBF of 2 million hours, a three-year warranty, and are capable of a 4k random write performance of up to 60,000 IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second).

Read More ...

---

HIS makes Radeon HD 6950 with IceQ X cooling
HIS announced no less than six cards based on AMD's Cayman GPU - interestingly enough, all these cards are Radeon HD 6950s, 1GB and 2GB versions, all equipped with an IceQ X cooler and more or less overclocked. The cards feature an IceQ X cooler, a dual-slot solution which brings together four heatpipes and a central 92mm fan to ensure lower temps and a quieter operation than is possible with the reference fansink. Beside custom cooling, the cards have a blue PCB, 1408 Stream Processors, a 256-bit memory interface and GDDR5 chips, CrossFireX support, HD3D capabilities and multi-monitor support enabled by dual-DVI, dual-DisplayPort and HDMI outputs.

Read More ...

---

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 15/10/2011

T-JAYS Four let you listen to your iOS device
Swedish headphone manufacture have just announced the latest iPhone and iDevice speced headphones. The t-JAYS Four work with iPhones, iPads and iPods, offering up 10mm TCD drivers, has a frequency response of 15 Hz - 25 000 Hz, an impedance of 16 Ohms, a vented bass port on each earbud, dividable, Kevlar reinforced cables, a 360-degree MEMS silicon microphone, a three-button remote, and a 3.5mm jack. The t-JAYS Four are available in black and will retail for $129 shipping in November.




Features

- Fully compatible with Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod; Answer / Hang up / Play / Pause / Skipping / Previous / Volume.
- Voice control.
- Ergonomic design with the ability to carry the cable
in two different directions.
- Microphonics-reducing cable clip.
- High-quality MEMS microphone.
- Dividable cables.
- Kevlar reinforced cables.
- 5 pairs of silicone sleeves in different sizes.
- Carrying case.

Read More ...

---

MSI and ASRock releases list of boards that support Bulldozer
Now that the AMD FX Series processors have finally launched, MSI and ASRock have decided to show their support by listing all their motherboards which can be used with the first Bulldozer-based desktop chips.

First, we have MSI's AM3+ compatibility list which includes four boards powered by the AMD 900 Series chipsets, and 14 more based on older chipsets. Not all are available though but there's a good number of actually selling models to choose from.



ASRock's 8-core-ready offering features 19 motherboards powered by chipsets new (990FX) and old (Nvidia nForce 630a).

Read More ...

---

Google Translate for Android gets Conversation Mode update
Google Translate for Android is expanding its Conversation Mode with support for twelve new languages, adding Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish to the existing English and Spanish support.

It’s not quite ready for widespread usage, factors like background noise and regional accents may affect accuracy. But in true Google fashion, the more that people use this early version of Conversation Mode, the more data the Google Translate team is able to collect to improve it.



Other new features in this update include Android tablet optimization, the ability to correct voice-generated input before you put it through the translator, the ability to put translated text in full-screen mode to make it easier to show people, and the ability to add unrecognized words to a personal dictionary.

The new version is available on the Android Market app store for devices running version Android 2.2 and above.

Read More ...

---

Windows 7 just overtook XP
If StatCounter's data (which is collected from over 3 million sites) is correct then these first half of October has seen Windows 7 surpass Windows XP to become the number one operating system worldwide, with a market share of just over 40% (up from 39.04% in September).

Despite becoming dethroned, the immortal OS, Windows XP, is still going strong, having a 38.62% share while way behind, on third place, there's Windows Vista with just 11.18%. The fourth spot in the OS charts is taken by Apple's Mac OS X with 7.3%, while on fifth we find iOS with 1.1%.

Bottom line is that, two years after its retail release, Windows 7 is king, and will be for a few good years since Windows 8 is still pretty far off.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:iOS , MSI , ASRock , Google , Android , Windows 7 , Windows ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 14/10/2011

Thermaltake Announces Transporter Carry Bag
Coming to aid LAN party goers, Thermaltake has made, and today unveiled, a sturdy carry bag that can hold up to a 100kg worth of gaming gear, including a (full/mid) tower chassis, a mouse, a keyboard, a headset, and all the cables that go along with them.



Called Transporter, this polyester TteSports-branded bag measures 600 x 300 x 600 mm, has a black/red color scheme, and provides protection against snow, water and dust. No word on pricing or availability

Read More ...

---

ASUS ROG CG8565 Gaming Desktop
Here are the first pictures of ASUS' latest gaming desktop under its premium Republic of Gamers banner, the ROG CG8565. This black beauty is sculpted with the typical edgy design that has been found on recent ROG products. The case has no windows, but its design is enough to be an eyeball-magnet at LAN parties. The case looks well-ventilated with its intricately-designed vents on its top and sides. The front door slides down revealing the front panel, with two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, audio, multi-format card reader, a Blu-ray ROM + DVD-RW combo drive, and a 3.5-inch SATA hard drive hot-swap bay. The ROG logo glows red when the system is powered on.

Under the hood, the ROG CG8565 is a Sandy Bridge-powered system. It is driven by an Intel Core i7-2600K quad-core processor, that's overclocked out of the box at 4.20 GHz. There are two higher OC presets that's selectable using the ROG panel, OC1 runs the CPU at 4.40 GHz, and OC2 runs it at 4.60 GHz. The CPU makes use of liquid cooling. In all likelihood, the motherboard is an ROG Maximus IV-class. There's 16 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz memory.




A NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 dual-GPU graphics card is in-charge of graphics. An ASUS Xonar DX handles 7.1 channel sound. In terms of storage, a RAID 0 array of two 80 GB SSDs holds the operating system, while there are two 1 TB hard drives for storage, which can either be run as non-RAID disks or clubbed into RAID 0 or 1 modes. Pricing and availability information is awaited.

Read More ...

---

MultiTouch today launched the largest LCD multi-touch display
MultiTouch today launched what it claims to be the largest LCD multi-touch display, powered by Intel's Sandy Bridge.

The MultiTaction Cell is a modular, 55-inch integrated LCD screen that can be combined into massive touch screen walls that support an unlimited number of users. Up to 24 displays can be stacked to run a single application. User input tracking is achieved via backlight emitter camera modules.


The screens come with a frameless, thin-bezel design that allows customers to build the Cell devices into any type of environment, including custom furniture, MultiTouch said. The displays can also be displayed horizontally and compete directly with Microsoft's Surface technology.

The screen has an active display area of 1209 x 680 mm and delivers 1080p resolution. The brightness is 250 cd/m2 and the contrast ratio is 4000:1. The software and high response time of 200 fps is driven by Intel Sandy Bridge processors. The power consumption is 450 watts per screen.

Read More ...

---

Google+ Rolls Out Real-Time Search, Improved Hashtag Support
As of yesterday, Google+ has started to roll out a couple of updates that bring extra functionality, and make it 'easier to follow and contribute to live events'. One of the goodies is enhanced hashtag support while the other is real-time search.

The hashtag improvements basically make it so that terms you use hashtags for become links,. These links are to a search results page where you can find stories that contain the linked word.

Real-time search is pretty self-explanatory and allows result pages to be automatically updated when a new post is relevant to your query. Both these features should be available to all very soon.

Read More ...

---

Nokia 603 Symbian Belle Smartphone Announced
Nokia still won't talk Windows Phone but it's willing to remind us that Symbian isn't technically dead yet so it went ahead to announced the Nokia 603 smartphone which runs Symbian Belle.

Coming in black and white (but users will have colorful rear covers to spice it up), this new phone measures 113.5 x 57.1 x 12.7 mm, it weights 109.6 grams and has a 3.5-inch (640 x 360) scratch-resistant ClearBlack touchscreen, a 1GHz processor, 2GB of storage space, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera (can record 720p video), NFC, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS, FM radio, and a micro USB port.




The Nokia 603 will ship later this quarter and cost about €200 before taxes or operator subsidies.

Read More ...

---

AMD launches FX Bulldozer desktop chips
Semiconductor giant AMD proudly announced on Tuesday the launch of its new FX series of processors, aimed at the desktop PC market and equipped with a set of customisable and fully unlocked functionalities.

The long-awaited FX Series debuts with four 32nm CPUs - two octo-cores, one hexa-core and one quad-core, all featuring unlocked multipliers so as to allow for easier overclocking, and all compatible with AM3+ motherboards.

The chips are equipped with four modules, each with a pair of cores, said the company.



Amongst the new products in the FX series, the FX-8150 happens to be the most powerful one with a base clock speed of 3.6 GHz, and it go as high as 4.2 GHz using the ‘Max Turbo’ mode and would be available in stores for about $245.

Read More ...

---

Acer Launches Half a Dozen S0 Slim LED Series Monitors
Acer has now launched in Europe the S0 Slim LED Series monitors, six models going from 19-inch to 24-inch which make use of LED backlighting, TN panels, have a dynamic contrast ratio of up to 100,000,000:1, and can brag with a profile just 13mm thick.



The S0 line includes the 19-inch S190WL with a native resolution of 1440 x 900, the 20-inch S200HL (1600 x 900), and the Full HD/1080p-cable 21.5-inch S220HQL, 23-inch S230HL, and 24-inch S240HL and S240HLbid HDMI). Acer's displays feature a 5ms response time, 250 cd/m2 typical brightness, and provide D-Sub and DVI connectivity (the S240HLbid also has a HDMI port).



According to Acer, the S190WL, S200HL, S220HQL, S230HL, S240HL and S240HLbid HDMI are shipping with recommended price tags of €109, €119, €139, €159, €179 and €189, respectively.

Read More ...

---

WD Reports Impact on HDD Production Due to Severe Flooding in Thailand
Having already affected millions of people in the country, the massive floods that hit Thailand are also taking their toll on Western Digital's business, as the company was forced to suspend its hard drive production there to protect employees and equipment from water ingress.

These unfortunate events will lead to serious constraints in Western Digital's supply as its Thailand facilities are very important pieces in the company's inner workings. In the quarter ended July first, the fab in Thailand shipped just over 32 million hard drives, of about 60% of Western Digital's total output.

WD says the continuously-changing conditions in Thailand don't allow for a full impact assessment.

Read More ...

---

Qualcomm processor disclosed details of the next generation of Snapdragon S4
Qualcomm has recently released the details of their upcoming next-generation SoC, System on Chip or processor. This process will make your Smartphone able to run with a great power and will fulfil almost all of your expectations.

The Qualcomm’s S4 SoC or their latest 28nm processors are called as the Qualcomm’s Krait CPU and the Adreno 225 GPU. 28nm can come across as the same amount of work that can be done on this small chip, as in a larger hardware. They even seem to be the smallest as the last smallest was 45nm.

s it will be providing the same amount of power and boost in a smaller size, this also means that the power consumption of is also less, thus a longer up time with the same set of batteries.

The Krait CPU promises a boost of 60% over the current Qualcomm Scorpion line as it brings a new pipeline architecture. The clock speeds ranges from 1.5 to 2.5GHz, which seems to be the highest processor speed among the CPU of mobile devices.

The Adreno 225 GPU will have a 50% increase in performance over the last 220 line of Adreno GPU’s. The 225 will also be capable of providing support for DirectX 9.3 for Windows 8 as well as OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0. All these mean that these processors are really going to be great for the high powered games.

The S4 MSM8960 will also have multi-mode capabilities along with support for frequencies ranging from 700MHz to 2600MHz. Qualcomm has also claimed the support for Cat. 3 LTE (up to 100Mbps) and Cat. 24 HSPA+ (up to 42Mbps). There’s more according to them as EV-DO Rev. B 1x Advanced, EV-DO Rev. B TD-SCDMA, GSM, GPRS, and EDGE, and there’s even more support for simultaneous GLONASS and GPS and of course, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, and FM radio.

Read More ...

---

Palit unveils the GeForce GTX 560 Ti Twin Light Turbo
Palit unveiled a new limited-edition GeForce GTX 560 Ti based non-reference design graphics card, the Palit GTX 560 Ti Twin Light Turbo. The card's design is based on a black colored PCB (Palit uses a red-colored one on its regular GTX 560 Ti cards), and a unique GPU Cooler design. The heatsink follows essentially the same structure as the one featured on Gainward Phantom cards, in which heat is conveyed to the aluminum fin stack by four heat pipes, but the fans that ventilate the card are located on the side of the heatsink facing the PCB, rather than on top of it. The fans draw in air from the heatsink. Palit claims that the cooler has a noise output of less than 10 dBA.


The clock speeds of the card are not given out, yet. Like every other GTX 560 Ti, this card makes use of a 40 nm GeForce Fermi 114 GPU, is DirectX 11 compliant, packs 384 CUDA cores, and makes use of 1 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface. Display outputs include two DVI, and one each of D-Sub and HDMI (full-size). There is one SLI connector that allows 2-way SLI with any other GTX 560 Ti card, and power is drawn in from two 6-pin PCIe power connectors. Availability and pricing information is not known at the moment.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Thermaltake , ASUS , Gaming , Google+ , Nokia , Smartphone , AMD , Acer , HDD , GeForce , GTX ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 12/10/2011

First ads for the Nokia 800 Windows Phone leak
Promotional material for one of Nokia’s first Windows Phone handsets has leaked, suggesting the smartphone currently known as the “Searay” will launch as the Nokia 800. According to the advert, leaked to Pocketnow, the Nokia N9 lookalike will have an 8-megapixel camera and is being billed as a speedy, everyday companion device.



Looking like the MeeGo-powered N9, the Nokia 800 is rumored to have a 3.7-inch (800 x 480) AMOLED touchscreen, a 1.4 GHz single-core processor, and 16GB of built-in storage space. At Nokia World the Finnish company is likely to announce more than 'just' the 800 model, but nothing has been confirmed.

Read More ...

---

New ASRock X79 Extreme7
ASRock has displayed its Flagship motherboard for Intel’s X79 Platform titled “X79 EXtreme7″. The motherboard is fitted with top quality components to allow best functionality support with Intel’s Sandy Bridge-E Processors compatible with the LGA 2011 socket.

ASRock's board has a 2oz copper PCB and packs six DDR3-2400+ memory slots, four SATA 6.0 Gbps and seven SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, five PCI-Express x16 slots providing SLI and CrossFireX capabilities, gold-plated solid caps, and an active cooler for the X79 chipset.



The X79 Extreme7 also boasts dual Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 channel audio, USB 3.0 connectivity (it looks like two ports on the back plate and four via built-in headers), one eSATA and one FireWire port, Power, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons, plus a debut LED.

Pricing has not been revealed yet but its likely to launch next month with Sandy Bridge-E Platform release.

Read More ...

---

Samsung Galaxy S III Specifications Leaked
It's no surprise that Samsung is preparing another Galaxy S flagship smartphone but now we may have an idea of what the South Korean company has in plan for its successful Galaxy S family.




The slide below includes a timeline for the Galaxy S series and mentions for 2012 the Galaxy S III which is said to feature a 4.6-inch Super AMOLED Plus HD (1280 x 720) touchscreen, a 1.8 GHz dual-core Exynos processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera. The image provided next to the specs doesn't look that enticing but it may be too early to complain, especially since the origin of the slide is sketchy.

Read More ...

---

Cooler Master Announces CM Storm Xornet Gaming Mouse
CM Storm introduces the latest addition to its line of gaming mice, the CM Storm Xornet. It’s an ultra lightweight, claw-grip design with anti-slip rubber side grips that make it well suited for the intensity of extended gaming sessions.












The CM Storm Xornet features a highly accurate 2000 DPI sensor that can be adjusted on-the-fly between 500, 1000, and 2000 presets, and omron micro-switches guarantee at least 5,000,000 clicks. Xornet is the first mouse with on-the-fly USB speed adjustments, which allows you to switch from 125Hz to 250Hz, 500Hz or 1000Hz.

CM Storm Xornet will be available in beginning of November, 2011 for €19.90.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Windows Phone , Nokia , Windows , ASRock , Samsung , Galaxy , Cooler Master , Gaming ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 11/10/2011

200,000 iPhone 4S's ordered over the weekend
The new iPhone 4S that Apple unveiled on October 4th has seen a great amount of demand since it went on pre-order yesterday. The original report from Reuters says that AT T processed 200,000 iPhone 4S pre-orders in just the first 12 hours of it going on sale. This is the most successful launch for AT T yet.



Additionally, Apple has sold out of it’s initial stock of iPhone 4S’s. This happened early yesterday morning when the shipping estimates changed to “1-2 weeks”.

Read More ...

---

HTC Radar and Titan on sale in Europe
Microsoft has been struggling to gain traction with its new Windows Phone 7 operating system and the first Windows Phone 7.5 phones have now gone on sale in Europe.

Starting with the HTC Radar, a €350 affair with a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8225 processor and Adreno 205 graphics, HTC is hoping to seize the mid range market. It features a 3.8-inch SLCD 800x480 screen, 512MB of memory, 8GB of storage and a 5MP camera, all packed in a smart aluminium body measuring 120x61x10.9mm.


The HTC Titan is a bit more serious take on Mango. It’s powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 processor with Adreno 205 graphics and it has 512MB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Titan features a spacious 4.7-inch 800x480 SLCD, 8MP camera and it measures 131x70x9.9mm. The price currently stands at €499 in Holland and it costs roughly €540 in Germany and Britain.

Read More ...

---

Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet
It has been discovered that the cockpits of two US drone fleets – Predator and Reaper, have been infected with a virus. The virus infection was discovered two weeks ago in the Creech Air Force base in Nevada. Since then, the officials have been trying to remove the infection, but the virus keeps on coming back.

The virus consists of a Trojan payload that logs the keystrokes of the pilot controlling the drones remotely. As you might know, these drones have been used extensively in spying as well as targeting enemy territory remotely and have been a great asset to the US Army.

It isn’t apparently clear whether the infection is a result of a cyber-attack or whether it was just an accidental infection. Whatever the case may be, the virus has infected both unclassified as well as classified machines, and it is speculated that some confidential data might have gone outside of the military network.


Interestingly, this is not the first time that the Predator and Reaper fleet has come under security scrutiny. It was well known that these drones send video to their stations unencrypted. The US Army had previously found hours of drone video recording on computers seized from Iraqi insurgents.

Read More ...

---

Nvidia giving away two Alienware M18x notebooks
Nvidia is offering community members and loyal patrons a chance to win an Alienware M18x gaming laptop. One will be given out to the Grand Prize Winner in October, and one in November. Five Second Prize Winners will receive a Swirl 3D T-Shirt from Nvidia.

link (http://www.geforce.com/Community/Rewards).

Read More ...

---

Verbatim Secure'n'Go Executive: USB 3.0 Elegance
Verbatim has been very active lately as far as presenting new products goes. Of course, this mostly consists of new USB sticks, portable HDDs and other data storage devices. The same applies this time around as well, with a particular twist in the fact that we’re dealing with the absolute latest the market has to offer - an Executive 2.5” HDD with a capacity of an entire 750 GB, complete with USB 3.0 interface.

Read More ...

---

Gigabyte Force K3 Gaming Keyboard
Gigabyte has unveiled their newest gaming keyboard called the Force K3. Coming in a sexy matte black finish, this wired keyboard features a one-piece rubber sheet design, blue LED indicators and a gold-plated USB 2.0 connector.

he upcoming keyboard measures 490 (L) x 263 (W) x 32.8 (H) mm, it weights about 900 grams, and has a one-piece rubber sheet design, a 1.5meter cable, a gold-plated USB connector, blue LED indicators and some clearly-marked gaming keys.










Unfortunately, there’s no word on pricing and release date yet.

Read More ...

---

AMD Releases New Preview Driver for Battlefield 3 and Rage
To provide a better gaming experience for this weekend and beyond, AMD has rolled out a second Catalyst 11.10 preview driver, a release which brings together optimizations for two of the hottest games right now, id Software's Rage and DICE's Battlefield 3 Open Beta.


- Improves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on single GPU configurations using the AMD Radeon HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 series of products.

- Improves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on AMD CrossFire configurations using the AMD Radeon HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 series of products.

- Improves performance in Rage on single GPU configurations using the AMD Radeon HD 6000, AMD Radeon HD 5000 Series and AMD Radeon HD 4000 series of products.

- Reduces intermittent crashing seen loading levels in Rage

- Resolves flickering of NPCs in Rage

- Enables automatic Vsync for Rage

- Enables support for AMD Eyefinity 5x1 display (portrait and landscape) configurations using the AMD Radeon HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 series of products.

- AMD Vision Engine Control Center: User Interface enhancements have been implemented for the AMD CrossfireX, GPU AMD Overdrive and Information Center pages.

The Catalyst 11.10 v2 driver (http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/GPU122AMDCat1110PreDriverV2.aspx) is available for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Read More ...

---

LG's 3D Game Converter for Optimus 3D rolled out
As promised in late August, South Korea's LG Electronics has begun the roll-out of a software update which adds to its Optimus 3D smartphone the 3D Game Converter, an app allowing users to play OpenGL-based 2D games in 3D.

LG Korea has announced that its exclusive 3D Game Converter is now available for download for LG Optimus 3D smartphones. Included in the first Maintenance Release (MR), the software will be available in Europe beginning this month and rolled-out to other regions over the next several weeks. The 3D Game Converter is the first software engine that allows smartphone users to transform OpenGL-based 2D games into 3D and vice versa anytime.


After installation, users simply need to activate the 3D Game Converter application. The only requirement is that the 2D game is based on OpenGL and runs in landscape mode. Users can also manually adjust 3D depth and vision settings for the optimum experience. Changing between 3D and 2D is as simple as flicking the 3D Hot Key switch at any time.

The 3D Game Converter can be automatically installed via Wi-Fi by checking for software updates directly on the phone’s settings menu. The update is also available by connecting the device to a PC and running the LG Mobile Support Tool Software. Users are advised to check their carriers’ websites for dates of availability.

Read More ...

---

Samsung and Google delay "Something BIG"
Google and Samsung have postponed their planned product launch at next week’s CTIA Fall event in San Diego. Though the company hasn't shared specifics of what they'll be unveiling, most analysts expect the duo to launch their next Nexus device, the much anticipated Samsung Galaxy Nexus Prime running Android's Ice Cream Sandwich release.

Apparently October 11th wasn't 'the right time to announce a new product', or at least that's what Samsung and Google have said before promising to provide a new launch date 'shortly'.



The long-awaited ICS operating system will debut on the 9mm thin device. Additional features include a 4.65-inch curved glass Super AMOLED HD display running at 1280x720 resolution, a TI OMAP 4460 dual-core Cortex A9 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of on-board storage, a 5MP rear camera and a front 1.3MP shooter, 1080p video capture, LTE / HSPA support depending on carrier, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, NFC and a 1,750 mAh battery.

Read More ...

---

Cooler Master Hyper 612S: Quiet Performance
Cooler Master has designed Hyper 612S as a CPU cooler with very good performance, but not at the expense of noise, or better yet silence. The cooler arrived in the recognisable packaging, containing the usual mounting clips for all CPU sockets, as well as a detailed manual, which is something that we always salute. Besides that, there was also room for a decent thermal paste, rubber buffers used when mounting the cooler to an AMD socket, and an extra set of plastic fan holders and the accompanying rubber buffers, so that the amount of vibrations is reduced to the minimum.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:iPhone , HTC , Nvidia , USB 3.0 , USB , Gigabyte , Gaming , Keyboard , AMD , Driver , 3D , 3D , Samsung , Google , Cooler Master ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 07/10/2011

Samsung's Series 7 11.6-inch slate available for pre-order
Just over a month has passed since its unveiling and the Series 7 slate from Samsung Electronics has been put up for pre-order in all three previously-announced versions - 64GB with Windows 7 Home Premium, 64GB with Windows 7 Professional, and 128GB with Windows 7 Pro.
All three models feature a 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) capacitive touchscreen, a 1.6GHz Core i5-2467M processor, 4GB of RAM, a rear-facing 3-megapixel camera, a front-facing 2MP camera, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, a SIM card slot, a mini HDMI output, and a USB 2.0 port.










The 64GB/Win7HP costs $1,099 , while the 64GB/Win7Pro and 128GB/Win7Pro are priced at $1,199 and %1,349 , respectively. A shipping date is still not available but Samsung's slate should arrive this month.

Read More ...

---

AMD Opteron 4200 lineup revealed
AMD has been pretty quiet until now when it comes to talking about the Opteron 4200 series of server processors based on the Bulldozer architecture, but a recent leak has managed to reveal the names as well as the specifications of these upcoming CPUs.

Like Opteron 4100 family, 4200 family is a mix of standard, mid and low-power microprocessors. The only known at this time low-power Valencia model is Opteron 4256 EE. This eight-core part runs at 2.5 GHz, and has 32 Watt Average CPU Power, which, we believe, corresponds to 35W TDP.

Two mid-power Opterons are six-core 4228 HE and eight-core 4274 HE. These processors come with 2.8 GHz and 2.5 GHz clock speeds, and they both boast 50W ACP (65W TDP).

All remaining models have 75 Watt ACP, or 95 Watt TDP. Opteron 4226, 4234 and 4238 have 6 CPU cores, and operate at 2.7 GHz, 3.1 GHz and 3.3 GHz. Opteron 4280 and 4284 have 8 cores, although their clock frequencies are lower, only 2.8 GHz and 3 GHz.

No information regarding the release date of these Opteron 4200-series server CPUs is available at this time, but they should arrive in Q4 of 2011.

Read More ...

---

Nexus Prime teased in new Samsung video
Less than 24 hours after Apple revealed its next big thing here we are on the threshold of the next, next big thing. This time it’s Samsung telling us to get ready because “something BIG is coming” at its October 11th event in San Diego.

Reportedly called Nexus Prime, the Samsung's phone seems to have a curved design somewhat similar to that of the Nexus S, and that 'bump' at the back like the Galaxy S II. Spec wise, the device is said to feature a dual-core processor, a 1280 x 720 touchscreen, 1GB of RAM, LTE support, and a rear-facing camera that can record 1080p video.

Read More ...

---

Fujitsu launches new LifeBook ultra-thin laptops
Fujitsu Japan has this week unveiled two slim 13.3-inch mobile offerings which make use of Intel's Huron River platform and include a built-in optical drive, the LifeBook SH54/E and SH76/E.

These two laptops are up to 24mm thick (the SH76/E is 23.2mm) and have an LED-backlit (1366 x 768) display, a 2nd-gen Core processor, Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics, 4GB of RAM, a DVD writer, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, an ExpressCard slot, a 0.3-megapixel webcam, an SD card slot, one USB 3.0 port, a ScrollWheel (that little round touchpad), and a battery enabling over 13 hours of operation.


The LifeBook SH54/E packs a 2.2 GHz Core i3-2330M CPU and a 640GB hard drive, while the SH76/E boasts a 2.5 GHz Core i5-2520M processor and a 128GB solid state drive. Both laptops will ship this month.

Read More ...

---

PowerColor's Devil
PowerColor has just announced the release of a new high-performance graphics card based on the AMD Radeon HD 6970 design, which uses a custom design in order to deliver higher gaming performance as well as silent operation.

Unlike AMD's design, the new cooler uses a pair of 92mm fans, which PowerColor says provide 60% better air flow than a regular 80mm fan, as well as four large copper heatpipes with a 8mm diameter to draw the heat away from the GPU and into an aluminum heatsink.

TUL's devilish card comes with a 12-phase power design, direct FET, a proadlizer capacitor, voltage read points, and makes use of a LED lights for a more flashy look. Moreover, it has 1536 Stream Processors, a GPU clock of 880 MHz (960 MHz with the OC BIOS activated), a 256-bit memory interface, 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM @ 5500 Mhz (5700 MHz OC), CrossFireX support, and five display outputs - dual DVI, dual mini DisplayPort and one HDMI.




The graphic card should arrive into retail at the end of October. Outside of the video card itself, the Devil 13 HD6970 is also bundled together with a matching tool set.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:AMD , Samsung , Fujitsu ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 05/10/2011

GeForce 600 branding leaked
In the latest unreleased 285 BETA drivers, the expected GeForce 600 branding has surfaced. The marketing names leaked are NVIDIA GeForce 610M and NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M. The GeForce 610M is likely to be an entry level GPU while the GeForce GT 630M could very well be a GK107 SKU.

The two relevant strings were leaked as:
NVIDIA_DEV.1058.01 = NVIDIA GeForce 610M
NVIDIA_DEV.0DE9.01 = NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M

Between GK107 news and these leaks, it seems evident that NVIDIA is concentrating on small mobile GPUs to debut it's next-gen line of GPUs.

Read More ...

---

NTT Docomo battery claims 10 minute charge time
Japanese mobile provider NTT Docomo has created a prototype battery that can fully recharge in 10 minutes. NTT displayed the new battery and charger at CEATEC in Tokyo

The current prototype was an external lithium-ion battery sleeve that attaches to the back of a phone. The unit was only functional with NEC’s Medias Android smartphone, a Japanese exclusive.

NTT is able to accomplish such a feat by pumping a lot more juice through the charger into the battery at once. The demonstration showed an amp meter connected to a standard charger as well as one connected to the prototype device. The standard AC adapter pushed .55 amps while the pre-production model boasted 5.86 amps. That’s more than 10.5 times the power being pushed to the battery.




The model being shown is likely an early prototype and could use some refinements in terms of aesthetics. Additionally NTT had no idea when the unit could move into production and find its way into consumer’s hands, other than saying it would be available “as soon as possible.”

Read More ...

---

Adobe Releases Flash and AIR Updates
Flash 11 and AIR 3 deliver a host of new features, including hardware acceleration for 2D and 3D graphics, at least for desktops. Stage 3D support will be added to the mobile variants for Android, iOS and BlackBerry at a later date. AIR 3 will also be sprucing up connected entertainment devices, like Samsung SmartTVs, with the ability to deliver Flash-based games and content to your home theater system. What's more, Adobe has baked in support for both Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound. That means both 5.1 and 7.1 sound can be built into an AIR app, whether it be a game or streaming video, and pumped out at up to 512Kbps though your Blu-ray player or other connected theater component.

Read More ...

---

AMD's piledriver details
Piledriver is the codename of AMD's processor micro-architecture that succeeds Bulldozer , which AMD is referring to in a company presentation slide as 2nd Generation Bulldozer . This, even before the first Bulldozer processors in the AMD FX Processor series begin shipping. Piledriver isn't an evolution over Bulldozer as such, and is more of a incremental update to the architecture.

Piledriver features an improved core design to bring about performance improvements of 10% over Bulldozer. It features two new instruction sets: FMA3 (Fast Memory Access 3) and Converged BMI (Branch if MInus). It will feature an improved IOMMU (memory mapping unit), referred to as IOMMU v2. Apart from these, Piledriver will fit into the existing ecosystem of AMD FX Processors, consisting of socket AM3+ and AMD 9-series chipsets. AMD is currently referring to the platform Piledriver-based processors will form around themselves as FX Next . There is no reason for you to skip Bulldozer for this, our sources told us that Piledriver CPUs can be expected only by mid-thru-late 2012. AMD FX Bulldozer processors are on course for a mid-October launch.

Read More ...

---

Razer unveils Transformers 3 gaming peripherals
Razer, under license from Hasbro, has unleashed a unique Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon Collector’s Edition product line now available on DVD and Blu-Ray. The four uniquely designed Razer DeathAdder mice in the form of OPTIMUS PRIME, BUMBLEBEE, MEGATRON and SHOCKWAVE, claim to offer unparalleled gaming performance. Also included in the product line is a dual-sided Razer Vespula mouse mat whereby one side represents the AUTOBOTS with a speed-enhancing surface, and the other, the DECEPTICONS with a control-enhancing surface. You can showcase your favored allegiance as you annihilate opponents with your preferred style of swiping. An exclusive laptop case designed by Razer is also available in four iconic TRANSFORMERS brand colors, delivering a stylish and eye-catching storage solution.


Product is available in Nort America by price US$59.99.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:GeForce , Adobe , gaming ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 04/10/2011

Asus Intros Ivy Bridge Compatible Motherboards
Asus has joined the likes of MSI, Gigabyte and ASRock with its Z68 PCIe Gen3 motherboard supporting Intel's 2012-bound Ivy Bridge processors.


The three Z68-powered boards will be called P8Z68-Deluxe/GEN3, P8Z68-V Pro/GEN3 and finally, P8Z68-V/GEN3. All three boards will sport two PCI-Express 3.0 slots, LucidLogix's Vertu graphics-switching technology and of course, USB 3.0. The boards will hit shelves and e-tailers alike in October with the Deluxe model priced at US$310, V-Pro sets you back $250 or so and finally, the V with a price of just $220.

Read More ...

---

Samsung will introduce a Galaxy Note this month
While initially it said the Galaxy Note would be rolled out in 2012, Samsung Electronics seems to have worked its magic and will introduce the Android mobile device as soon as this month, with European countries like the UK, Germany and France being the first to get it.











Variant of the popular Galaxy S II platform with an enormous 5.3-inch screen. Perhaps even more impressive, the resolution on the Super AMOLED + panel is a jaw-dropping 1280 x 800, a size that was relegated to the laptop category just a few years ago. The Galaxy Note also features a unique capacitive stylus and customizations to Android 2.3 Gingerbread to take advantage of it, with various note-taking and drawing applications shown. Previous leaks suggest this one will cost about €799.

Read More ...

---

Kodak releases waterproof handheld video camera
Well-known imaging company Kodak has recently added to its product portfolio a new compact video camera, the Playfull waterproof model which can record 720p video, withstand drops of up to 5 feet, and be submerged up to 10 feet under water for up to 2 hours.

The new Playfull camera packs a CMOS sensor, a 2-inch (112.3k-dot) color LCD screen, 18MB of built-in storage, an SD card slot, a Share button, a pop-up USB arm, plus a speaker and a microphone.


Kodak's camera is available in white for $99.95 and in black, bundled with a 4GB SDHC card, at $119.95.

Read More ...

---

Google Chrome continues its rise
According to Californian company Net Applications, Google Chrome has continued its rise in the global browser market, managing to reach a share of 16.20% at the end of September. In August's Google's browser topped 15.51%.

While Chrome is still third, Internet Explorer and Firefox kept the first and second spots in the browser game, but both slipped some more. IE dropped to 54.39% after being at 55.31% in August while Firefox settled at 22.48%. One month ago Mozilla's creation was at 22.57%.

Apple Safari performed quite well too as it was able to break the 5% mark and consolidate its fourth place in the race. Opera was at 1.67% in September, its drop from the month before being minimal (0.01%).

Read More ...

---

GIGABYTE unleashed the all new Superb power supply series
Gigabyte Technology is ready to update the Superb line of mid-range power supplies, and for that it designed five new units - the 470W E470C3 and E470C3, E570 (570W), E620 (620W) and E720 (720W), which will be released in the coming weeks.



The fresh Superb PSUs comply with the ATX 12V v2.3 standard, and feature an 80Plus certification (with the exception of the E470C4), an efficiency of up to 82%, Japan made main capacitors, a 120mm fan, sleeved cables, over-voltage, over-current, under-voltage and short-circuit protection, and multiple (for on the E720, two on the other models) 12V rails.

Read More ...

---

Foxconn to produce Amazon 10.13 Tablet
Foxconn to produce Amazon 10.1″ Tablet

Amazon is expected to outsource the production of 10.1-inch tablet PCs to Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry), and shipments of the 10.1-inch tablets are likely to begin before year-end 2011 for holiday-season demand, according to industry sources. Foxconn declined to comment on market reports.

Foxconn has been a long-term contractor for Amazon's Kindle e-book readers, and market watchers had expected the company to also land orders for 7-inch Kindle Fire tablets.

However, Foxconn reportedly decided to not take the 7-inch tablet PC orders as the company has been busily working on iPads for Apple, said the sources, noting that Quanta Computer landed the 7-inch Kindle Fire orders.

Read More ...

---

ViewSonic has announced the launch of PLED-W200 and PLED-W500
ViewSonic has just announced the launch of two projectors in its new portable LED projector line: the PLED-W200 and PLED-W500.

Ideal for the business traveler or on-the-road presenter, this ultra portable and energy-efficient projector line features miniature form factors and a 20,000-hour long-life LED light source, LG said. Both the PLED-W200 and PLED-W500 come 3D-ready with 120Hz frame rates. The short throw projectors feature WXGA widescreen resolutions for large screen HD projection in compact spaces, which makes them ideal for 720p HD content.

The projectors even contain USB ports, SD card readers and the PLED-W500 even packs 1GB of onboard internal memory for content storage purposes, and presenting without the use of a computer. The PLED-W500 has HDMI connectivity for your Blu-ray players, tablets, smartphones and gaming consoles.












The PLED-W200 and PLED-W500 will be available in North and Latin America in mid-October with three-year limited warranties for respective ESPs of US$499 and US$699.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Ivy Bridge , Asus , Motherboards , Samsung , Galaxy , Kodak , Google , Chrome , GIGABYTE , Amazon , Tablet , ViewSonic ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 01/10/2011

Cooler Master announces CM Storm Trooper premium chassis
CM Storm, of the Cooler Master Group, unleashes a truly magnificent feat of engineering into an arena that represents the future of warfare; the Trooper full-tower chassis. Capable of lightning fast redeployment, it’s the first in its class to include an ultra-strong carrying handle, allowing a gamer to travel with the finest system configurations available with relative ease. CM Storm Trooper includes features that are most coveted by gaming enthusiasts in that it has full dust filter coverage, a fan controller, an external SSD drive hot-swap dock and two uniquely designed modular hard drive cages. These features give CM Storm Trooper the ability to adapt to workstation or water-cooled gaming configurations easily.

CM Storm will be launching CM Storm Trooper at a MSRP of 149€ in Europe. Expect to see it at retailers and online locations that sell your favorite Cooler Master, CM Storm, and Choiix gear by November 4th 2011 in Europe.

Read More ...

---

New HIS Radeon HD 6970 card enables DisplayPort-free Eyefinity
HIS is readying the release of Radeon 6970 IceQ Eyefinity RTS (Ready-to-see) which allows for lower-cost 3-display Eyefinity setups that don't utilize DisplayPort monitors or active adapters.










The card has 1536 Stream Processors, a GPU clock of 880 MHz, a 256-bit memory interface, 2GB of GDDR5 memory set to 5500 MHz, CrossFireX support, and is equipped with a dual-slot IceQ cooler utilizing four copper heatpipes and the Black Hole Impeller technology, enabling working temperatures up to 23 degrees lower than on reference models. Just like regular 6970s, the IceQ Eyefinity RTS includes dual-DVI, HDMI, and dual mini DisplayPort outputs. The price tag was not announced.

Read More ...

---

Super Talent releases the USB 3.0 Storage POD HDD/SSD enclosure
Super Talent has now expanded its USB 3.0 product offering through the introduction of the Storage POD, an external enclosure with a SuperSpeed USB interface that can house one 2.5-inch SATA hard drive, solid state drive, or hybrid drive.



The USB 3.0 Storage POD measures 129 x 81 x 15 mm, it features internal rubber grommets that reduce vibration and increase shock protection, it comes with a one-year warranty, and has a recommended price tag of $30.

Read More ...

---

Skype 2.5 for Android brings support for more tablets
An updated version 2.5 of Skype for Android has now been made available and it comes with support for 14 more Android devices (smartphones and tablets), with video enhancements, but also with ads (these won't show for people with Skype Credit, a Calling or Skype Premium subscription).



Skype 2.5 allows for both portrait and landscape video calls, it brings improved support for Bluetooth headsets, it allows users to edit and delete IM messages, and, as mentioned, it expands device support to include Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, HTC Nexus One, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V, LG Optimus Black, Motorola Droid 3, Motorola Xoom, Acer Iconia Tab A500 and more.

Read More ...

---

Music piracy declines in Sweden
According to a new report, it appears that music piracy has consistently fallen since 2009, thanks to the popularity of Spotify, at least in Sweden. Overall piracy has fallen 25 percent in two years, says the Swedish Music industry. Spotify, which is free with some restrictions, has millions of tracks from all the major labels and independents. Premium versions give mobile access and unlimited streaming to users.

The recent Swedish study showed streaming as the preferred way to listen to music, with 40 percent of responders saying they now use a streaming service compared to just 10 percent who download music legally. 23 percent still regularly pirate, but that number has been dropping. Despite the encouraging numbers for the music industry, a significant portion of streamers (30 percent) said they would go back to piracy or free services like YouTube if Spotify, MOG, etc began charging.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Cooler Master , HIS , Radeon , USB 3.0 , USB , Skype , Android ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 30/09/2011

Cooler Master (re)introduces Hyper 212 EVO & Hyper TX3 EVO
Cooler Master signals the rebirth of two household names in computing, the Hyper 212 EVO and Hyper TX3 EVO CPU Coolers. They come packed with an improved tower fin design, heat pipe layout, upgraded fans, and fan brackets. All of which provides an even more extreme value for end-users of all types.










The Hyper 212 EVO now features four Cooler Master patented Continuous Direct Contact (CDC) heat pipes that are tightly packed into a flat array on the CPU Cooler base. This acts as a virtual vapor chamber that dissipates a large amount of heat. The aluminum fin structure has been optimized to provide the perfect performance balance between high and low speed fan operations. Optimized for current and future generation sockets, the Hyper TX3 EVO sees improvement in its Direct Contact heat pipe performance, expanded socket support, and a higher quality 92mm wide-range PWM fan. Expected end user price is 20€ for Hyper TX3 EVO and 30€ for Hyper 212 EVO, excluding taxes.

Read More ...

---

ASUS Maximus IV Extreme Z: Beginning With Z
ASUS’ “Republic of Gamers” series is always nice to cross ways with, and just as sad to separate from. This ASUS motherboard, Maximus IV Extreme-Z, represents the ROG family in the segment of Intel’s Z68 controller logic. Just as any ROG model, this one has a rich accompanying bundle and a load of new and interesting technologies too. Of course, the price reflects all that just as well, but it somehow falls out from view when you have a look at all the things this model can do.

Read More ...

---

Battlefield 3 Beta: First Impressions
As you probably know, the official start of Electronic Art's Battlefield 3 beta test is drawing near and we had a chance to try the game a bit sooner than most other players. Apart from playing, we also performed the short test in order to know what to expect from hardware when it comes to this game. We tried playing with the configuration Electronic Arts specified as a minimum to play this game comfortably. What we had is a 3.2 GHz dual-core Phenom II X2 555 processor combined with 2GB of RAM and a Radeon 3870 graphics card. Although it might not be expected due to impressive in-game trailers with pimped up visuals, you can actually play the game comfortably using Radeon 3870 in full HD resolution, albeit with minimal graphics settings. Of course, here and there the framerate drops below 30 frames per second, but considering the fact that 3870 is four years old video card, we think that engine optimization is more than good. Even on low settings, the game looks quite decent, so if you have a relatively old hardware, you shouldn't completely give up the game.

Read More ...

---

MeeGo to be retired, Tizen takes over
The Linux Foundation and the LiMo (Linux Mobile) Foundation have announced a partnership that is suppose to result in the development of a new Linux-based, cross-architecture (both x86 and ARM-supporting) software platform called Tizen. It is supposed to have a state-of-the-art reference user interface and will feature application programming interfaces based on HTML5 and WAC. The upcoming platform will target everything from smartphones and tablets to smart TVs, netbooks and in-vehicle infotainment systems.

This new project signals the demise of MeeGo, but the team behind it is promising to work hard on ensuring that users and developers can transition to Tizen as smooth as possible. Spearheaded, at least development-wise, by Intel and Samsung, Tizen is planned to debut in Q1 2012, with the first devices powered by it being expected around mid-2012.

Read More ...

---

Zotac makes GeForce GT 520 for PCI and PCIe x1
Zotac has introduced two new, low-profile GeForce GT 520 cards, one that utilizes a PCI interface and another that has a PCI-Express x1 connector.










Targeting old systems, servers and HTPC machines, the new GT 520 editions have 48 CUDA Cores, GPU/shader clocks of 810/1620 MHz, a 64-bit memory interface, 512MB of DDR3 memory 1333 MHz, and D-Sub, DVI plus HDMI outputs. The PCI model comes with a single-slot passive cooler, while the PCIe x1 version is equipped with an active, but still compact cooler. The cards' prices were not announced.

Read More ...

---

iPad again at over 80% of tablet market share
iPad has regained its 80% tablet market share in the North American region as of July 30th, despite falling to around 74 percent earlier this year. During the quarter of April to July, iPads accounted for 6 million of the 7.5 million tablets shipped in the U.S. and Canada. The figures come from research group Strategy Analytics, who calls Apple a formidable market leader .

One analyst said that Apple remains a long way ahead of its main rivals such as Motorola, Samsung, RIM, Asus and HTC. However, according to the firm, Amazon will become a strong challenger when it announces its much-hyped tablet/e-reader.

Read More ...

---

Windows 8 will allow you to login using Windows Live
One of the new features Microsoft is adding to Windows 8 is the ability to login to your computer using a Windows Live ID. The primary purpose for this is sharing of Windows settings across multiple computers, all of which would have to be running Windows 8 of course. User can either select settings to share between computers or simply use Microsoft's default settings.

In addition, it will allow you to automatically load Metro style apps purchased from the Windows App Store and automatically login to websites which use Windows Live authentication. Shared settings will be divided into the following groups such as Personalize , Themes , Passwords and similar. If you have a regular Windows login, you will also be able to associate your Windows Live ID with it later on. There will be a password requirement in order to do that. They haven't clarified exactly how strong the password will need to be, but they've just said a blank password will be forbidden.

Read More ...

---

LG D2342P-PN: 3D on Your Desk
Few will contend the fact that the era of 3D technology is well underway. 3D screenings are slowly outnumbering 2D ones in cinemas, and virtually all recent Hollywood blockbusters are shot with 3D cameras. The world with an extra dimension, whether on a cinema screen, TV or mobile phone, looks and feels different, interesting and attractive, so the only logical thing to expect is for all display devices to venture into 3D. Following this trend, LG has recently presented Optimus 3D, their new smartphone, and besides the TV, projector and DVD player, their 3D product gamma is now richer by the first PC peripheral equipped with passive 3D technology - a monitor bearing the number D2342P-PN.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:Cooler Master , ASUS , MeeGo , Zotac , GeForce , Market Share , iPad , tablet , Windows 8 , Windows , Windows , LG , 3D ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 28/09/2011

AMD and NVIDIA release Battlefield 3-optimized drivers
Nvidia has now made available a graphics driver specifically aimed at delivering a better experience in the Battlefield 3 beta test. The driver in question is known as the GeForce 285.38 beta and is supposed to increase performance in DICE's highly-anticipated FPS by up to 38%. Just hit the Search button here (http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx).



AMD has also delivered its own updated graphics driver that specifically targets players of the Battlefield 3 open beta. The driver brings improved performance in DICE's high-profile first-person shooter for Radeon HD 6000 and HD 5000 series cards. To download it, check here (http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDCatalyst1110Previewdriver.aspx).

Read More ...

---

Samsung believes to meet 2011 tablet sales projections
A Samsung spokesman said the company isn't worried that Apple's lawsuits will cause them to miss tablet sales projections for 2011. Apple patent lawsuits around the world have already resulted in a delay of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia and a ban on sales of the tablet in most of Europe. However, the European ban is specifically against Samsung, but European retailers are still free to sell the tablet.
Samsung's J K Shin says the company expects to increase tablet sales by more than 5 times compared to last year according to Bloomberg. Since Samsung hasn't disclosed their 2010 numbers, it's hard to be sure exactly how many that is. According to analysts, last year's sales were probably around 1.6 million, which would mean at least 8 million units sold this year if Samsung's prediction is accurate. That would put them squarely in the lead among Android tablets, but still significantly behind Apple's industry leading iPad.

Read More ...

---

Intel introduces 32nm Atom D2500 and D2700 processors
Intel's next-generation Atoms codenamed Cedar Trail have finally arrived, but not exactly as expected. The Cedar Trail family is arriving in two waves, with Intel first rolling out the nettop-oriented Atom D2500 and D2700 models, while the N2600 and N2800 nettop chips are expected later on.
The 1.86 GHz D2500 and 2.13 GHz D2700 are the first 32nm Atoms featuring two x86 cores, 4 threads, a built-in DDR3 memory controller, 1MB of L2 cache, DirectX 10.1-supporting integrated graphics and a TDP of 10W. The Atom D2500 costs $42, while the Atom D2700 is priced at $52 (prices are for 1,000-unit tray quantities). The Cedar Trail platform is capable of 1080p playback and features Blu-ray 2.0 support, as well as the Intel Wireless Display, PC Synch and Fast Boot technologies.

Read More ...

---

Nokia starts shipping the N9 MeeGo smartphone
Nokia has announced that it begun shipments of its first MeeGo-based smartphone, the colorful and market-restricted (it won't be available in a lot of major markets) N9.



Going from €480 (for the 16GB model) to €560 (for the 64GB unit, without taxes), the N9 features a 3.9-inch 854x480 curved glass AMOLED display, a 1GHz TI OMAP 3630 processor, 1GB of RAM, a rear-facing 8 megapixel auto focus camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash that allows for 720p video, and a front camera for video calls. The device also boasts GPS, NFC, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, a micro USB port, an 1450 mAh battery, and pentaband WCDMA, quad-band GSM, and HSDPA 14.4Mbps support.

Read More ...

---

Samsung announces WP 7.5 Mango-powered Omnia W
Samsung Electronics has unveiled the Omnia W, a smartphone running Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.5 Mango platform. New device measures 116 x 59 x 11 mm, weights 115.3 grams and features HSPA 14.4Mbps support, a 1.4 GHz single-core processor, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, a 3.7-inch 800x480 Super AMOLED touchscreen, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash and a front VGA camera.



The Omnia W also brings A-GPS, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a USB 2.0 port, and a 1,500 mAh battery. This phone is set to start shipping at the end of next month.

Read More ...

---

Gartner predicts iPad domination for 4 more years
Gartner analysts are predicting Apple's iPad will finish 2011 with nearly three quarters of all tablet sales worldwide. Last year, they say, Apple had an 83 percent share. Of course, when you consider they also predict total tablet sales in 2011 to triple last year's numbers, that's certainly good news for Apple. Android tablets are expected to account for 17 percent of the market in 2011, increasing from just 2.5 million units last year to 11 million this year. Despite major gains by Android, Gartner says the iPad will be the leading tablet through at least 2015.

One possible development which could throw off these predictions is Amazon's entry into the tablet market. Rumors suggest not only will they be selling an Android tablet soon, but it will be sold at or below cost. However, Gartner's report indicates they have taken the Amazon tablet into account, meaning they apparently don't believe it will be a particularly big threat to the iPad.

Read More ...

---

Motorola Spyder pictures leaked
According to a new report, Motorola will soon be releasing a new flagship smartphone known as Spyder (or Droid RAZR or Droid HD) featuring, at last, a qHD 960x540 Super AMOLED touchscreen toughened with Gorilla Glass, alltogether with a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor. The Spyder is also supposed to have a durable Kevlar casing, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera for 1080p video recording, a front-facing HD camera, 1GB of RAM, and 4G LTE support. The device is also able to use Webtop docks.



Unfortunately, there's no info yet regarding the pricing or availability or the Spyder. We don't even know what Android version it will have installed, but there are two possibilities, Android 2.3 Gingerbread or the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich .

Read More ...

---

Samsung sold 10 million Galaxy S II units
Samsung announced that its hit smartphone has reached 10 million units sold, without even launching in America. The Galaxy S II has seen a massive uptick in sales the last two months, after launching in April in Korea. The device has a 4.27-inch WVGA Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen, Android 2.3.4, a 1.2GHz Samsung dual-core processor, an 8.5 mm thin chassis (at lowest), an 8MP camera with autofocus and 1080p recording, NFC support, 4G, a 2MP front-side camera and HSPA+, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0+HS.



Furthermore, the device runs on Samsung's updated TouchWiz UI and weighs less than 115 grams. The original Galaxy S sold 10 million units in 2010, and is one of the most popular Android devices so far.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:AMD , NVIDIA , Samsung , tablet , Intel , Nokia , MeeGo , smartphone , iPad , Motorola , Galaxy ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 27/09/2011

Verbatim vs OCZ Agility 3: It's SSD Time!
Although things may not seem that way at the moment, we’re still hoping that the statement by a representative of one of the largest memory manufacturers in the world, saying that SSD prices will drop down to 1€/GB by the end of the year, will come true in the end. Even if that doesn’t happen, it’s clear that the industry is moving in that direction, and that the moment where the majority of users would have an SSD in their PCs isn’t that far away. Another thing that speaks in favour of such prospects is Intel’s Z-68 chipsets, which openly promotes SSD as one of the best ways to speed up your system.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:OCZ , SSD ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 24/09/2011

VIA sues Apple, wants iPhone and iPad sales ban
Taiwanese chip company VIA Technologies has filed a complaint with the federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, through which it accuses US titan Apple Inc. of infringing three of its patents related to microprocessors.

VIA is asking for a jury trial and wants a US-wide sales ban to be issued on all Apple products that violate the three patents. The hardware targeted by this case includes the iPhone, the iPad and iPod, while the Mac line seems to be safe. It's highly likely that this battle may end quickly with a settlement.

Read More ...

---

Zotac makes AMD A75 mini-ITX motherboard
As nobody doubted, Zotac released its newest HTPC-ready compact motherboard, a mini-ITX model called A75-ITX WiFi which is, as its name suggests, based on AMD's A75 chips and supports FM1 accelerated processing units .



Zotac's board includes two DDR3-1866 memory slots supporting up to 8GB of RAM, four SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, one PCI-Express x16 slots, dual Gigabit Ethernet, eight USB 3.0 ports (six on the back panel, two via a header), 5.1 channel audio, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and DVI and HDMI outputs. The pricing has not been announced.

Read More ...

---

AMD's Rick Bergman steps down
Less than a month after hiring a new CEO (Lenovo's Rory Read), AMD is experiencing some suit shakeup as former ATI executive Rick Bergman has resigned from his position as General Manager of the Products Group. CEO Read will serve as interim GM of the Products Group until a replacement is found.

While losing Bergman, AMD also added to its exec team, as it hired Comcast's senior vice president of engineering, Paul Struhsaker, as corporate vice president and general manager of the newly-formed Commercial Business Division. In his new role, Struhsaker will oversee product management and roadmap planning for AMD's server, high performance computing and embedded products.

Read More ...

---

Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 to launch in October
Adobe has announced that Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will launch early next month. It promises that the release will enable the next generation of immersive application experiences across devices and platforms including Android, Apple iOS (via AIR), BlackBerry Tablet OS, Mac OS, Windows, connected TVs and more. Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will enable game publishers to deliver console quality 2D and 3D games over the Internet to nearly all PCs, and a host of other mobile devices.






According to Adobe, media companies can take advantage of new features to seamlessly deliver protected feature-length, cinema-quality HD video through the Web, in mobile apps, and even with surround sound for connected TVs. Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 are suppose to provide a cross-device entertainment platform, enabling the best in online gaming and premium video while helping content publishers to reach the broadest possible audience with highly-leveraged development investments.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:VIA , iPhone , iPad , Zotac , AMD ,

IT News Head Lines (InsideHW) 23/09/2011

AMD showed us working Trinity-based notebook
While Intel’s IDF was in full swing, AMD used the opportunity (like previous years) and set up a demo room to show off their latest and greatest for journalists around the world. Very interesting presentation was HP dv6 laptop in two editions, one with Intel second Core Generation i5 and other with the next-generation Fusion A-series accelerated processing unit (APU) code-named Trinity. This is the first time when AMD shows off a running Trinity-powered system up-and-close.






One of the coolest things was that on this notebook prototype based on Fusion Trinity APU was running Deus Ex Human Revolution game as well as on Intel counterpart. While both systems were set to the maximum of their capabilities, Intel was vas visually inferior in terms of visual quality. Since Intel HD graphics is DirectX 10 compatible and Deus Ex offers DX9 or DX11, it couldn’t go past DirectX 9 settings which are visually inferior to AMD APU’s latest and greatest Direct X11. Also, FSAA settings couldn’t be on the same level. That didn’t helped performance, as Intel system was noticeable choppy and not close to fluent FPS presented with AMD system. HP dv6 with next gen AMD APU did really great in latest Deus Ex game, with all settings maxed out and in 1366x768 pix resolution.










AMD also demonstrated another comparison: decoding video material on CPU, without use of GPU part. And while at the first moment it looked really good scoring almost 50% greater fps then Intel Core i5 counterpart, we did noticed that hyper treading on Intel platform wasn’t turned on, and that would for sure narrow difference gap quite a bit. Stay tuned for a detailed review of new platform in upcoming months, but we can say that we are quite impressed with graphic performance and stability of the new APUs even in this early stage. AMD’s second-generation code-named Trinity APU for mainstream personal computers (Comal for notebooks and Virgo for desktops) will be made using 32nm SOI HKMG process technology at Global Foundries. The APU will feature up to four x86 cores powered by enhanced Bulldozer/Piledriver architecture, AMD Radeon HD 7000-series Southern Islands graphics core with DirectX 11-class graphics support, DDR3 memory controller and other improvements.

Read More ...

---

YouTube introduces 2D to 3D conversion
Video-sharing system YouTube has received a new update that brings to the table the option of converting a 2D clip to 3D with a simple click, and provides access to two more video creation platforms - Vlix and Magisto, for adding effects or short clip editing.



To convert your uploaded video, just select Edit Info and then click on 3D Video . The move from 2D to 3D will be made automatically so just click, wait a bit, and then you can start linking your 3D video wherever possible. Both Vlix and Magisto and all their options are available at youtube.com/create (http://www.youtube.com/create/). As a little bonus to these additions, YouTube is also dropping the 15-minute upload limit to more users. To take advantage of this you need to have a clean track record and complete an account verification.

Read More ...

---

I-O Data makes BDXL-supporting external Blu-ray writer
I-O Data will soon be rolling out in Japan a new external optical drive, the BRP-U6XE Blu-ray writer which measures 137 x 154 x 20 mm, has USB 2.0 connectivity, and features support for BDXL discs, going up to 100GB in terms of capacity.



I-O Data's drive comes with a built-in cable, is bundled with Corel's WinDVD BD3D and Nero Express Essentials, and is capable of disc writing speeds of 6x for single/dual-layer BD-R, 4x for triple/quad-layer BD-R, 2x for BD-RE, 8x for DVD-R/+R and DVD+RW, 6x for DVD-RW and dual-layer DVD-R/+R, 5x for DVD-RAM, 24x for CD-R, and 16x for CD-RW. The BRP-U6XE is backed by a one-year warranty and will sell for about $233.

Read More ...

---

Samsung starts making 20nm-class DDR3 memory
South Korean Samsung has two reasons to celebrate these days as it began operations at its new Line-16 memory fab which is claimed to be the biggest in the world, and it kicked off mass production of the first 20nm-class DDR3 DRAM chips.
Samsung's 20nm-class DDR3 is claimed to improve productivity by 50% and reduce energy consumption by 40% compared to 30nm-class chips. For starters, Samsung is going up to 2Gb in terms of density with with 2xnm DDR3 DRAMs but by the end of the year it plans to have 4Gb chips so as to allow for high-capacity (16GB and 32GB) memory modules. As for the recording-breaking Line-16 fab, it's located at Samsung's Nano City Complex in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, it takes up a 12-story building and has about 198,000 square meters of workspace. This fab represents a $10 billion investment aimed at consolidating Samsung's leadership in the memory market.

Read More ...

---

Toshiba AT200 tablet available for pre-order
Toshiba AT200 Android tablet, announced earlier this month, has started to pop up in Europe with Deutsche Telekom's t-online-shop.at listing both the 16GB and 32GB models. The two devices are up for pre-order and don't have a solid shipping date.



Priced at €479 and €584, the 16GB and 32GB AT200 tablets are just 7.7mm thin, and have a brushed aluminum back, a 10.1-inch (1280 x 800) LED-backlit touchscreen, a 1.2 GHz OMAP 4430 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, a microSD card slot, a rear-facing 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, a front-facing 2MP camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a micro USB port, a micro HDMI output, and a battery enabling up to eight hours of operation. The two listings say that the AT200 come with Android 3.1 but Toshiba announced them as being pre-loaded with the latest Honeycomb release which is versions 3.2.

Read More ...

---

Most tech advanced countries have fastest Internet
According to a report from content delivery company Pando Networks, South Korea has the fastest Internet speeds in the world with an average download speed of over 17 Megabits per second. By comparison, German speeds were barely above 5 Mbps, which was still better than the US or UK. Those countries had average speeds of 4.93 Mbps and 4.79 Mbps respectively. The report is based on data collected on downloads from Pando's content delivery network during the first half of 2011.



Northern European countries were well represented in the top 15, including Sweden (7th), Denmark (9th), Netherlands (11th), Finland (12th) Norway (15th). Looking at the speed data overlaid on a map, one thing that stands out is how slow Internet speeds are in developed countries with strong content production industries. On the other end of the spectrum, countries where tech industries dominate the economy, including South Korea and Finland, tend to also have relatively fast Internet service. Japan is something of an outlier, likely reflecting the fact they are representative of both categories.

Read More ...

---

IDF: Everything you want to know on Ivy Bridge
During Intel Developer Forum there was a lot of talk about Ivy Bridge (coming in H1 2012), and here is what we know up to now. In research and development of Ivy Bridge three teams were talking part, including one from Israel which originally designed first Core processor. As with Sandy Bridge, they are continuing their 2 chip platform (one CPU, one GPU). A bit more surprising is that it will be usable in same socket as Sandy, which wasn’t often case in past few years. New, smaller, 22 nm processes will be used, together with new, tri gate transistors. Graphic part of the chip will receive most improvements, included but not limited to full DirectX 11 compatibility. If you are familiar with Intel nomenclature Tick and Tock part of development will be familiar to you, and while CPU part is Tick, for GPU they are saying as it is Tick + as it beside smaller manufacturing process also bring some improvements architecture. It will support up to three displays at the same time, which was by Intel words very desirable to customers, and in some way giving nice credit to AMD Eyefinity technology.










One of the very interesting new technologies implemented will be Configurable TDP. That means that it will be possible to have multiple TDP levels within same processor part, and configuring in line with requests, cooling solution etc. Ivy Bridge processors will have three TDP options for each CPU model: the minimum TDP, the nominal TDP and the maximum TDP. It means that with proper cooling and sufficient power supply the CPU can significantly exceed its nominal frequency without any concerns for the limitations of the nominal TDP. This is something that the Turbo Boost technology the way it is today doesn’t allow, because it is closely connected with the TDP settings. The opposite is also true: if for whatever reason you need to save some power, then you can always switch the processor TDP to a lower level.










To further improve battery life with better power management (optimized voltage choice for all operating frequency) and low power mode, DDR3L comp ability is introduced, where it stands for Low voltage DDR3 memory support. It was specifically with Ultrabooks in mind that they decided to integrate DDR3L memory support into their current memory controller. DDR3L is the memory with lower power consumption that uses only 1.35 V voltage feed. And we are talking not just about lower signal voltages, but also about the ability to shut off I/O power to DDR memory in deep sleep states. Another new word was used – PAIR which stands for Power Aware Interrupt Routing, chooses best core to service interrupts based on its status e.g. not to wake up sleeping core if there is no need for that.










The biggest improvements are expected to be in Graphic chip of new Ivy Bridge. If you were asking yourself if that means that Intel continues with its two chip strategy, it does means exactly that. And while CPU chip is regular tick process (no design change, smaller production process) Intel thinks that GPU improvements are big enough to call it tick+. What is change or added you may ask? Well, a lot of things for sure. First, it will be full DirectX 11 compatible graphics, which is quite improvement comparing to now quite old DirectX 9 compatibility in available chips. Hardware Tessellation unit will be added enabling nice performance boost in latest games, as well as adding L3 cache which wasn’t all that necessary in previous architecture. This will result in roughly 60% better performance compared to current offering, and they believe that will significaly narrow gap between them and competition in GPU performance.










The only exact number which is publicly available at this time is the number of transistors inside the Ivy Bridge die. They will increase to 1.45 billion. It means that the upcoming processors will be 45% more complex than Sandy Bridge and a significant contribution to the transistor count will come from the graphics core. It will now occupy more than 30% of the semiconductor die.










One interesting question was asked during this presentation: in light of recent trend of IT companies suing each other over patents, do they think that AMD can take similar steps. It appears that last year dill to end all legal disputes between two companies is still active as Intel representative told us that “Intel and AMD won’t sue each other over patent claims”.

Read More ...

---

AMD 7000 demoed during IDF
In another room of the really big AMD apartment which was used as showroom during IDF was really interesting stuff – next gen graphics. On a board which engineers usually use for testing was a very interesting MXM graphic. If you are a bit more in to the topic, you will probably know that this format is usually used for laptop parts, so the real question is what it is doing there? After a lot of questions and not so many answers we got some parts of the puzzle. On the table and working, was a next gen 28nm graphics from upcoming 7000 series (Southern Islands). As AMD usually first introduce desktop and then latter on notebook parts, it was very interesting that they already have these silicon part up and running. As AMD guys where very secretive about, well, basically everything, we can only guess that usual cycle won’t be broken, and conclude that next gen desktop 7000 series is very, very close.



Knowing that new series of mobile graphics are usually architecturally identical to previous desktop parts but in smaller manufacturing process, while new desktop parts always brings design/architecture change, we can try to conclude something. We can for example guess that AMD encountered some problems with design, and still doesn’t have working silicon for desktop part. Or, we can speculate that this specific VGA will have similar usage as 4770, to check if everything is ok with new manufacturing process and to iron out some problems which can surface out. Nothing of this matters that much if the performance will be on expected level. For that, we only had one game to check, and that was a Dirt 3 replay in a loop. Frames were good, and effects were rich, obviously DirectX 11, but we did noticed that replay is not running in native display resolution. We got answer that it is in game feature, and for replay to be smooth as possible Dirt 3 itself is lowering video resolution. This wasn’t the first time we heard about something like that, and it probably was the case, but if you know please leave a comment. Anyway, this should be mid range graphics with unknown amount of on board memory, and while Dirt 3 is not a most demanding game out there it is still very good result for midrange notebook part.

Read More ...

---

Available Tags:AMD , notebook , YouTube , 3D , Blu-ray , Samsung , DDR3 , Toshiba , tablet , Ivy Bridge , Everything ,